The Milk Maid …. a train station ….. and the place that changed its name and changed it back again ….. Manchester stories ….

There are plenty of ways of telling the story of Greater Manchester’s history but no one has done it by using the tram network, and yet with eight tram routes and 99 stops it is the perfect way to do so.

The Milk Maid, from 1906

Each route and each stop have a heap of stories so find those stories, add a few more from the surrounding areas and very quickly they will by instalment build into a rich account of how we lived set against the big and small events.

Small events like visiting the Milk Maid bar in Piccadilly Plaza in the 1970s and gazing out at the historic Gardens which was once the site of a hospital and before that a place of punishment.  Or taking the tram to New Islington via a railway station and discovering its textile and canal past while pondering on how it changed its name and changed it back again.

All of which and more are contained in our new book, Piccadilly Gardens to New Islington.

It is the fourth in the series, The History of Greater Manchester By Tram and includes memorials, the old BBC building, with a look at the new Mayfield Gardens and that nightmare for motorists which is Stoney Brew.*

There is the big stuff like the Manchester Blitz, but also stories about the Doll’s Hospital and Sundays on a deckchair in Piccadilly Gardens.

And having read book four you can collect the first three, which take you on a journey out of south Manchester, into the city centre and on to Victoria Railway Station.  

In between there will be stops in rural Chorlton, industrial Cornbrook, the elegant St Peter's Square and those bold new civic enterprises from Manchester Town Hall to Exchange Square.

The books are available at £4.99 from Chorlton Bookshop, the shop at Central Ref, St Peter's Square, or from us at www.pubbooks.co.uk

Location; Piccadilly Gardens, the Railway Station and New Islington

Pictures;  Out of Manchester Piccadilly, bound for Vrewe, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, The Milk Maid, from a 1906 picture postcard from Tuck and Son, courtesy of Tuckdb, http://tuckdb.org/about

Out of Manchester Piccadilly bound for Crewe, 1979

*A new book on the History Of Greater Manchester By Tram, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20History%20of%20Greater%20Manchester%20by%20Tram

Just 47 years ago in the village churchyard

Our parish churchyard in the April of 1978

It is just 47 years since this picture of our old parish church yard was taken.

And yet it is so far from the knowledge or experience of many in Chorlton that it might as well have been taken in 1878 rather than 1978.

And it is one of those odd things that despite having frequently walked past the crowded jumble of grave stones I have no recollection of the place looking like this.

Nor of the attack on the gravestone of Police Constable Cock who was murdered on August 1st 1876.  According to the local newspaper* “ the small headstone on the already battered, iron-railed grave in the old St Clements’s churchyard near Chorlton village green has been torn from its retaining screws by vandals or thieves attracted by the historic tablet.”

P.C.Cock's headstone, Preston, 1980

The original six foot high headstone which included the old Lancashire Constabulary crest was moved to Preston in 1956.

Now the murder is fairly well known and still crops up from time to time in stories of Chorlton.

At the time the understandable wish to get a quick conviction led to the arrest of William Hebron who was found guilty in the December but the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Which was all to the good given that just over two years later Charles Pearce who had a history of petty theft confessed to the murder of the policeman.

Looking back at the picture I continue to be surprised at the state of the place.  Leaving aside the vandalised graves you have to admit that it’s more than a little neglected.

Some of the headstones have been lift to tilt and those on the ground are uneven.

This is all the more shocking when back in 1847 an official inspection reported that the church and the graveyard along with the headstones were well kept and the grass mown regularly.

But this had been when there was still a church here and when people made their way down from the north entrance to worship in a church which dated back 149 years.

It had been built in 1800 on the site of an earlier chapel, survived the opening of a rival church on the corner of St Clements and Edge Lane and only closed in 1941 when frost damage made it almost impossible to hold services there.

Overturned headstone, April 1978

After that it lasted just another eight years succumbing to persistent attacks by vandals and was eventually demolished.

Not long after our picture was taken Angus Bateman and a team of people undertook two archaeological digs of the site and a little later the area was landscaped.

Now I remain ambivalent about that.  Certainly something needed to be done, and it is now a nice place to sit, but many of the gravestones were taken away and lost and the few that remain were not all returned to their original resting place.

And so the memorial stone to P.C.Cock is now situated close to the lytch gate which is some distance from where he was buried.

Does it matter?  Well yes I think it does.  Not only are the surviving headstones in the wrong places but the actual records of so many of the people who were born worked and died in the township are lost forever.

Their names and the often poignant inscriptions are no longer there to read and so it is almost as if they never were.

Looking north in 1978

Now I am not religious but I do think such memorials are important.  As historian I know they are, as indeed they are for anyone who has links with Chorlton.

And to underline that thought recently I met a descendant of the Reverend Booth who presided over services in the parish church for thirty-three years.  She was thrilled that his headstone had survived and paid for its restoration.  To her it was a very tangible link to her past family.

Nor is that quite the end.  For the gentleman in the picture is Mr Fred Casson who was verger of the church from 1930 till it closed in 1941.

He knew the church when it was still a lively and important part of the community and reflected on the struggle to maintain graveyard.  “Manchester City Council now look after the graveyard. They do a lot of repair work but every time workmen finish one job vandals smash something else.  It’s a losing battle.”

Looking north in 2009

Today by and large the place is vandal free and it is pleasant place but I rather think I would like it as it was, even if it meant coming down and helping make good from time to time.

And there I shall leave it.

Picture; from The Journal Thursday April 13, 1978, the Loyd collection and the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Vandals wreck memorial to famous murder, The Journal Thursday April 13, 1978

Taking the curve into Shude Hill ………….

Now I am a fan of our tram network, and I never tire of watching them move across the city at a stately pace, taking the curves and twists bequeathed by our old road network.

Taking the curve into Shude Hill, 2022

All of which says much for the skill of the Metro engineers who managed to plot routes using those roads some of which date back into the late 18th century.

And one of my favourite spots is Balloon Street where trams effortlessly take the bendy way up from Corporation Street crossing Dantzic Street before sliding into the Shude Hill stop.

Before the tram Balloon Street was just a cut through up from Victoria Station which I sometimes also used to visit the Co-op archives.

But now the route is closed to traffic and is exclusively given over to the trams which emerge from the canyon like street flanked by tall buildings with a bit of grace.

Location; Manchester

Picture; taking the curve into Shude Hill, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

That first cinema at the top of Eltham High Street

This is the Eltham Cinema and was on the corner of the High Street and Westmount Road.

Eltham Cinema, circa 1913

It was opened in 1913 and demolished in 1968 which means I must have seen it countless times on my way to school at Crown Woods but even now it does not register with me.

I can’t be sure but I am guessing it survived as a Picture House until the big plush cinemas further down the High Street, and in Well Hall offered a bigger and comfortable experience.

And until now that was about all I knew, but yesterday I came across The Kinematograph Year Book, Program, Diary and Directory 1914, which is packed with everything from a list of all the cinemas in 1914 with information about this new and exciting form of entertainment along with lots of adverts.

Advert

And from the book I now know that its proprietor was a Mr Robert Frederick Bean who was listed in 1913 at 4 Everest Road.  A few years earlier he was in Brockley describing himself as a manufacturer’s agent for lace.  He was 31, had been married for three years and had two children and employed a nurse and a housemaid.

I wish I knew more about them but that is about it although they do seem to have moved around a bit living in Lewisham as well as Brockley and Eltham.

In time we will learn more and perhaps also a bit more about the cinema which sadly had no listing for the number of people it could seat.

And Tricia had found out more, "it had 1 screen and seated 400  people. It was built in 1912 opened 1913 and closed 1937.

Pictures; Eltham Cinema, courtesy of Thisiseltham, and advert from The Kinematograph Year Book, 1914, page 43

*Thisiselatham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/

On the High Street back watching the film of your choice

So Eltham has its own cinema again.

For any one who can remember the Well Hall Odeon, the ABC on the high Street and the Gaumont this will be good news.

There may even be those who remember the old Eltham Cinema Theatre which opened in 1913 and was demolished in 1968.

I say remember it but long before it was knocked down it had ceased showing films which just leaves us with the three of which the Odeon renamed the Coronet struggled on the longest, finally become empty in 2000.

Although I do think it provides the image of a closed cinema in that warning about the dangers of film piracy shown at the pictures.

Any way I look forward to how the consultation goes and the prospect that once again on the High Street you will be able to “sit back and enjoy a film.”

In the meantime here is a reminder of how things went during the back end of the 20th century.

This is the ABC which closed its doors in 1972 and was demolished soon after

It had stood on the corner of the High Street and Passey Place for half a century.

It was opened as the Palace Cinema in 1922, showed its first talkie in 1930* and for a few brief years from 1966 to 69 was where I went with first Pamela, then Jenny and finally Ann, but that is a story for another time.

Picture; the demolition of the ABC in the High Street courtesy of Chrissie Rose.


* ELTHAM IN OLD PHOTOGRAPHS, John Kennet, 1991

Back on Barlow Moor Road sometime after 1911

Now sometimes you do have to wonder about what makes a particular spot so likely to be photographed again and again.

Barlow Moor Road at that point where it crosses High Lane and Sandy Lane is just one place.  On one level you can understand why.

This was where the trams terminated, and where the tram office was, and a little later after this picture was taken would be where the new terminus was constructed.

It was one of our landmarks known for a great chunk of the 19th century as Lane End and for a while as Brundrett’s corner but that is a story for another time.  All of which meant it was a popular place for a rendezvous which would be agreed in advance given that this was a time before the mobile phone.

So being a popular place it was a natural choice for the travelling photographers to capture and make into a postcard scene.

Earlier in the month I included one that had been taken around 1911, A late day in summer on Barlow Moor Road sometime after 1911 

And today I turned up another possibly made at roughly the same time, and I rather think it speaks for itself, although I will just point out that litter is not something peculiar to today.

Picture; from the collection of Allan Brown

The mystery at Ivygreen ..........

Now I know I am on Ivygreen Road and the date will be around 1980 but exactly where almost defeats me.

So, hence the mystery.

My very first inclination was that I took the pictures at the top end, but that wouldn’t have given me that clear view across to the pumping station.

All of which means that we are at the Bowling Green end, and this is the site of Allan Court.

And that offers up a surprise because it means that the blocks of flats post date my arrival, although I have no recollection of them being built.

But the entrance in the photograph corresponds to what is now the drive into the car park so I am fairly certain where I was on that winter day in 1980.

Added to which other pictures in the batch include views of the rear of the parish churchyard and a shot up St Clements Road to the village green.

So it follows that I was at the bottom of Ivygreen.

At which point there may be those that mutter about a non story, but not so, because both images give a very clear idea of what the meadows once looked like, before the trees and bushes were planted and before they matured to make it impossible to see far away across to the river.

All that we now need, is for someone to describe what had been here on this bit of land beside the road.

I rather think it was a builder’s yard which may have belonged to Joe Scott, and at one time also used by the Walker Brothers who later moved into the barn at Higginbotham’s Farm.

Well we shall see

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Ivygreen Road, 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson